On The Other Side Of The Glass
by Anni Re
Summary: Harry has just been born. Snape sneaks into the hospital to see him and of course thinks about Lily in the process.


I don't own any Harry Potter characters--they go to Jo.

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On The Other Side Of The Glass

By:

Anni Re

The beige colored hall of St. Mungo's Maternity Ward was empty on the night of July 31st. Empty save for a man in black which Apparated with a gunshot crack out of thin air. His robes dripped with rainwater, creating a pond around his thin, fragile looking body. A pasty claw-like hand stiffly rose and raked his raven hair plated to his skull away from his face. A face that, though youthful, had lines carved into it caused by the by the past months. The past nine months.

Severus' onyx eyes quickly flicked over to the clock on the wall. 10:27 p.m. The boy was close to being eight hours old now. Eight hours. How dare he monitor the age of James Potter's child, which was also the child of Lily Evans. Severus' eyes moved downward from the clock to the window where the hospital displayed their newborns to the beaming and weeping parents that had their faces pressed to the glass. Severus huffed and stepped out of his puddle towards the glass, towards what lay on the other side.

His eyes scanned the surnames of the beds. Evans…Evans…Evans…he sighed audibly. No, his mind said to himself. His eyes tried again. Snape…Snape…Snape… He closed his eyes and groaned, his head tilting towards the ceiling slightly while his mind once again beat down that fantasy. He opened his eyes again, a grim determination set in them. Potter…Potter…Potter.

He was in the center of the room behind the glass shield that divided them, his small form sleeping in the bassinette. Severus' eyes ran over the child, his lips turning down in distaste. The baby was a miniature Potter; a miniature James to be more precise. Same face, same hands, same hair. He looked down at the child's name: Harry James Potter. Harry. For as long as he had known her, Harry had always been on Lily's shortlist of baby names, just beneath his name. Severus James Potter. His mind immediately rejected the interlocking of their names. He tried again. Harry Severus Potter. That sounded a little better, but why would his name outrank the name of the father. Harry Severus Snape…if only.

Severus looked down beneath the name and saw Lily's as the mother. That was the only thing that was definite. His logic told him that James being the father was subjective. He looked at the child again. No this was James' child, and if Lily was this child's mother, then Harry Potter was the son of his greatest adversary, and his greatest love.

Severus closed his eyes, his teeth grinding together as his head roughly rested against the glass. He pictured the child with darker hair, longer fingers and paler skin, but no matter what the child looked like he wanted it to be his, because it was the child of Lily Evans—Potter, her reminded himself, it was Potter now. A fact that made this all the more painful.

Severus heard a small sound from beyond the glass and his eyes followed the sound. He gasped at what he saw. Lily's child had awoken, his huge, brilliant, emerald green eyes staring curiously out at him. Severus clutched the frame because his knees went weak as he stared transfixed at the eyes that looked innocently, and for once in a long time not accusingly, at him. In the midst of James Potter's face stood Lily Evans' eyes. They were the things about her which he cherished more than anything; more than her soft, pale skin, more that her fiery red hair, more than her amused smile. Her eyes survived the blending process with her husband into their son. And that, however small, however hollow, he could take comfort in.

With a relaxed face he once again looked at the child. He drifted to the hand which had jerked, palm outward, towards him, vainly reaching for him on the other side of the glass. A ghost of a smile crossed Severus' face. He put his pointer finger on the glass, the pad of that finger eclipsing all of the baby's hand. In the back of his mind he was amazed that this child was so small.

The hidden brand on his arm prickled and he gasped retracting his hand away from the window. Lily's eyes looked at his slightly pained face questioningly. He slowly turned his face away before the memory of those eyes morphed into hurt, anger, and rejection.

He sighed, his hand falling away from the glass to his side and he stepped away from the child on the other side of the glass towards the reason why this child was not his. With a helpless look at the embodiment of the life lost to him, he disappeared with another crack.

Finis


End file.
